Burning Makes it Whole
by Darikiema
Summary: Jedi do not have soulmates. They are pillars of strength and devotion to a righteous cause; they are free from the whims of the heart. They do not have Soulmates. But Obi-Wan does and it burns all the more for who it belongs to.


His arm is on fire. It's being ripped off and lit on fire so that the tongues of it's flames can wrap around his shoulder and hand and his mind and heart and _soul._ He can't think of anything beyond the agony. The searing ache that is wrapping itself as securely around his body as water in his lungs. The wind in his hair; the sun upon his skin. The Force within him.

He doesn't feel the floor raising up to hit him in the face until the dull throb on his forehead rings hollowly through his skull. It pauses the ache for the briefest, most blissful second but the agony returns just as sure as it was there in the first place. There is a hoarse and ragged tug in his throat and he wonders if he had caught a cold without realizing it. He thinks he can hear someone shouting and he just wishes that they would shut up. Just shut up so that he can wallow in this hellfire misery on his own.

It's a tiny, distant part of his brain that makes him wonder if it's him screaming, but he dismisses the thought as soon as it comes because he's in too much agony to _breath_ , let alone scream. So it has to be someone else. But why they would be shouting, he isn't really sure because no one can possibly understand what true pain is until they feel _this._ Until they have felt every nerve ending alit and searing with energy and flames. The zipping and fizzing of lightning through his veins and the rushing of blood as it pounds an uneven staccato behind his eyes. The migraine that he will get from this episode of this, this… He doesn't even know what the hell _this_ is!

It lasts for days, hours, an eternity. It's over in an instant.

The lingering agony along his flesh as the pain finally recedes to the depths of his mind as a foggy memory will haunt him as much as the scar on his arm.

"Obi-Wan!" He thinks that's Qui-Gon, his master's, voice that is calling him through the muddled haze that has settled over him. He thinks he can feel the man's hands on his shoulder and that the shaking he feels is the man who has loved and cared for him trying to get his attention. But all he can tell for sure is numb and cold.

"Obi-Wan," the voice is whispering as they run gentle fingers through his shorn hair and tugging ever so carefully at the braid over his shoulder. "Wake up, Padawan. Wake up and talk to me, Obi-Wan."

He wishes that he could. That he could open his mouth and tell his master- his father- that he was alright and he only needed a few minutes to come back to himself and they could continue with, well, whatever it was that they were doing before _this_ happened. He just needs to open his mouth and speak the words. It's easy, he knows. Just like it's easy to open his eyes and look at his master to assure him that he was fine. He is; he's _fine._

He hopes.

But blackness has wrapped around his vision and he feels this soft calling from his mind that speaks of rest and of freedom from the ghosted pain that still sends shudders through his body. It's without any conscious thought, but he sinks further into that bed of ignorance.

He's unconscious long before his eyes close.

* * *

When he wakes, there is a soft sound on the wind that is like fabric rustling and birds singing. The air feels warm and the blankets that have been piled high are a gentle caress to his heated skin. There is the same gentle scent on the air that he has always associated with his master so he knows that the man is nearby, or was around long enough for his scent to linger when he left. There is a cool rag on his forehead that feels like heaven and Obi-Wan just wants to stay in this cocoon and to go back to sleep. He never wants to leave the embrace of it's comfort.

But the memory of how he got here is tickling at the edges of his consciousness, waiting for him to acknowledge it. Brushing over the jagged edges of his mind with a siren's song of temptation he wishes he could have ignored. Because when he lets it, the ghost of agony tears through his body once more. Making his throat hurt from the groan it ripped out of his chest. Reminding him that he might have had a cold he didn't remember- or was it that he was screaming?

He doesn't care. All he wants to know is what happened. And the only way to find out is to ask Qui-Gon about it.

So he rips his eyes open and blinks away the moisture the searing light pierced his cornea with for his trouble. Fishing his right arm out of his nest, he brings his hand up to wipe them away and rub the grit out. For having been asleep for Force knows how long, he certainly doesn't feel like he slept any. The room he wakes to holds no Jedi for answers either.

So, left with only one option, he pushes himself up from the pillows and shoves an astounding amount of fabric away from his body. His tunics had been removed but his trousers are still on so he isn't particularly miffed. A large white bandage is wrapped around his entire left arm, keeping large, cooling bacta pads in place. He almost jolts with surprise that he even still has an arm after the agony he had endured. Surely it had been cleaved off?

The room is empty and he feels strangely grateful because he isn't sure what he's going to find underneath the bandage. Tenderly, tentatively, he reaches for the white cloth and begins the task of unwinding the patches. Streaks of red and tongues of enflamed skin are revealed with every rotation of his arm around his elbow, every layer of bandage that he removes. Winding up and down his arm in long races of burned flesh that mimic the fire they had consumed him with. More and more being revealed, thicker as he drew closer to the epicenter of his injury. Perhaps he had been attacked and poisoned? That would be logical. Preferable. The better of the two things that could have happened.

He closes his eyes in childish fear, in pure terror of what he will find under the final bacta patch. He hopes- he prays- that it will be some puncture wound where a poisoned dart collided with his elbow. Where there is a large hole, red and swollen, that will heal and leave all of this as a distant, mildly amusing memory that he can tell his friends about and be teased accordingly for. Because the alternative is too painful and too terrifying to think of. Because Obi-Wan is the perfect padawan and does everything he is told with all the enthusiasm and determination his station requires. He does everything he can to make his master proud and to honor the Jedi Order, the Code and the Republic. He does everything he can to follow the Code and the Force and to keep his master safe and happy because he is the perfect padawan.

How is he supposed to do any of that if he has a soulmate?

There are tears welling in his eyes as he sits like that for a time. His right hand hovering over his left elbow as he tries to bring up the courage to just uncover the mark. Whichever it is. There is a brush of concern over the training bond he shares with his master but he shoves it aside and shuts it all down because he doesn't know how he will be able to face his master if what he thinks happened, happened. Doesn't know how he is supposed to become the Jedi he's always dreamed of being when he has a soulmate he could leave the Order for.

The cloth falls away from his arm as a violent shudder passes over his shoulders and down his spine. He keeps his eyes closed, but all he has to do is open them to find the truth. He just has to open his eyes and see for himself that he is over reacting to what was clearly a poisoned dart. He's never even heard of someone's soulmark making itself known the way his had. So clearly it's not that. He doesn't have a soulmate. Never will. He just has to open his eyes to prove it to himself.

Sea-green eyes open to a band of pale blue that twines around his elbow.

He sobs. He chokes on the bile he tried to swallow and feels his heart plummet into his stomach. He thinks the pain in his chest is worse than the pain in his arm. Because he is sixteen years old and his soulmate was only just now being born. He's a cradle robber and he doesn't even get a choice about it.

He's a Jedi and he has a soulmate. He has a reason to leave or betray the Order he swore his life to and he didn't even ask for it.

He'll never be a Jedi now- they'll kick him out as soon as they find out because he cannot have a split loyalty- so he just lets it all go. Pours his pain and his rage and his betrayal out of his eyes and his mouth in gasping, choked sobs and white hot tears that scald his skin sure as the mark on his arm did because that is all he can do.

Qui-Gon returned to find his padawan cradling his cursed arm to his chest. Body curled tightly around it as he hiccuped on his long dried tears.

"You'll get through this, Padawan," he murmured into the ginger hair, brushing fingers of reassurance over their closed off bond and his pandawan's spiked hair until the boy turned to him and let him in. Grabbed hold of him and held on tight. Sobs despite the tears already being spent. Dry heaves when he can't keep his breathing steady. Chokes on the thoughts of what his life is becoming. Shivers at the unknown future ahead of him.

But he never lets go.

Qui-Gon never tells a single person of his padawan's soulmark and Obi-Wan was just selfish enough and lost enough to follow the example. They never discussed it and the younger Jedi took to wearing long, leather arm guards that traveled along the entire length of his arms, keeping the mark hidden from everyone. Even himself.

They never spoke of it. And maybe, if they had, Obi-Wan would know what the scribbled words that had been clear as day when they appeared had said before blurring away until they were spoken. Obi-Wan wouldn't have to wonder what those now fated words would be. He would know just how special he was.

He would know what Shmi Skywalker knew.

* * *

Obi-Wan shuddered, the burning racing a searing trail up and down his arm and through his body like tongues of fire. The heat and agony wrapped and centered throughout his body from his left elbow where the band of black, once the palest shades of blue (blue like his eyes) now seared its tattoo across his body and mind. Burned into him with a pain he could never tell another about. Never.

He can hear Anakin whimpering in the other room. He's been a ghost these past few days, wandering around their shared apartments as he searched for solace and companionship. Someone to fill the void of loneliness that was ripped into him by the loss of his mother. Obi-Wan hadn't seen him since they had returned from Naboo and Qui-Gon's- since the funeral, but he could imagine the poor boy flitting through the rooms of their apartment looking through mementos of a life he would never be part of as he tried to just find a way to run away from his own burning soul mark. Face pale and eyes dull as the black ring that had been the color of Obi-Wan's eyes prickled in a way he didn't understand beyond what his mother had told him before he left. Before his whole life was turned up on it's head and spun around and around until he was dizzy with the shock of it all. All the while wondering why he had been locked into the apartment with his new "master" who had locked himself in his own room.

Anakin will never realize how much agony Obi-Wan is in because the older man has no intention of telling the boy that he sucked as much of the pain from the burning soul marks through their burgeoning bond and into his own body as he could. He will make sure that the boy _never_ knows that he is his soulmate. Because Anakin is nine years old and Obi-Wan is twenty-five and the only way he knows how to make the burning stop is to-

He chokes and shudders into his pillow. Groans out his agony and fear and hatred of their accursed marks.

He will never tell a soul that his soulmate is his padawan, least of all his apprentice. Because Obi-Wan is a good man and would never do… _that_. Not with a child, the child he swore to protect. Most of all though, he will never tell the council because he will _never_ let them take the boy away from him.

Yes, he promised Qui-Gon to train the boy, but he would have left the order regardless of if they had allowed Anakin to become a Jedi. He will go with his soulmate anywhere.

He wonders if it is because of the knowledge that the boy is his soulmate, or if it's because he truly feels like he cares about the little boy. He hopes it's the later. And, if it isn't, he'll work his hardest to make sure it is. He will work on getting to know the boy and he will understand and love the child because the child deserves it, not just because destiny says he's supposed to.

So, when the burning finally eases into a minor ache that he thinks he might be able to ignore and the grief of loosing his Mentor- his _father-_ becomes a numb hole in his heart, the first thing that Obi-Wan does upon exiting his rooms is to draw the child from the couch he was crying into and hold him against his chest as tightly as he can. Cooing soft assurances of devotion and protection and the best comfort he can provide. Swear that he will do all that he can to deserve the boy and to make up for the past three days of his absence. And silently damn what they say about soulmates and how it is all about love and romance and some such bantha shit, he will love the kid just because he can. In any way he can.

And the burning eases away before he can even realize it.

* * *

"Master!"

Obi-Wan looked up from his data pad, alert and on his feet at the panicked cry of his new padawan. He tosses the pad on his chair and heads for the 'fresher in a rustle of robes and socks on the carpet when another one sounds. He hates that carpet, but he doesn't really get a choice in what their quarters look like or how they are furnished. It always did make it easier to sneak up on his master, and now his padawan, but he does not enjoy keeping it clean.

"Master?" the voice calls once more, still panicked but not as loud now that he can hear the older Jedi coming.

"What is it, Anakin?" he asks, shoving the door open and wincing when he stubbed his toe on the doorjamb. The blond was standing in the small room, shirt open and facing the mirror until Obi-Wan came in. His blue eyes wide and padawan braid swinging because of the way he was erratically switching his gaze from his master to the mirror. Looking at something that only he could see before he deemed it prudent to show the man he had summoned with so much panic.

"What is that?" he demanded, turning away from the mirror and pointing at a tiny black mark on his chest. Obi-Wan obligingly stooped to get a better look at it. He blinked. Looking back up to his padawan in disbelief before looking back at it once more to see what could possibly scare the kid so bad. Before he can say anything, Anakin is speaking.

"We were learning about diseases today in class and the other padawans were telling stories about fleshing eating viruses and cancer that they had seen. Master Che said that skin cancer starts as a dark splotch and that it's caused by the radiation in sunlight and I come from Tatooine and there is a lot of sun light there- it has two suns!- and I was outside without any sort of protection all the time and it itches all the time and, and- Master, am I gonna die?"

Obi-Wan watched as the boy managed to shout all of this out without even taking a breath or turning blue. Blinking in surprise and, ok, a little bit of shock. Really, how did he say all of that so fast?

It seemed so silly, being afraid of a birthmark and thinking it was skin cancer. Could the boy not see the tiny bump and the little hair that protruded from it's top? It was small and the redhead had pulled all the cloth back to get a good look, using the force just to make sure it wasn't anything malignant, but it was just a freckle. A mole. Nothing dangerous. Surely Anakin wasn't that thick skulled?

Well, maybe he was.

"Master, I don't wanna die," Anakin wailed, tears brimming those blue eyes and spilling over reddened lids as his nose wobbled almost as much as his lips. It was ridiculous. He was afraid of a mole.

Suddenly Obi-Wan is laughing at Anakin, his fear and his tears. He doesn't mean to be so crass about it, but the boy thinks it's cancer! It's stupid and funny and he can't keep his feet he's laughing so hard. Tears are in his eyes and he's long fallen to his knees as he tries to control himself. It's not funny and he can see how upset and hurt Anakin is by the way that Obi-Wan is laughing at him, but the giggles are hard to contain. He thinks he ought to be annoyed and more than a little furious at the other padawans for putting this crap into his apprentice's head, but, so far, he just can't find it in him to be mad. He's sure that will come later.

Soon, Anakin is red in the face from anger and shame and hurt, shoving at the broad shoulders of his master to try and get by so he can go back to his room and wallow in self pity. But the shoulders don't budge and even though Obi-Wan's laughter has long dried up, the chuckles are still making it hard to breath. He's able to wrap his arms around the shivering and nearly sobbing child before he can outright crawl over the other Jedi and hold on tight.

"It's a mole, Ani," he manages to gasp out. He bites his lip harshly when he feels a wave of laughter try and rise up his throat once more. It's not nice and he's being a dick, but they aren't obeying his command to go to hell.

"It's just a mole or a birthmark, Anakin," he explains to the rigid frame. Rubbing circles into the little shoulders and pressing his lips to the hair behind the boy's ear. "You're not going to die. I wont let you."

"Promise?" a tiny voice squeaks, little arms wrapping cautiously around him and gripping tightly to the robes on his shoulders.

"Promise," he breathes. Pulling away to wipe the tears away and smile warmly at his padawan. His little brother, he thinks. Ruffling the blond spikes affectionately before he cleans tear tracks out of existence. "We can go to the healers and have them check, if you want, but I assure you that it's nothing to worry about. You don't have skin cancer."

Anakin just pouts at him. Crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at the man's shirt front.

"How would you know? Master Che said that they can look like moles and that's why they are so dangerous. You're not a healer, Master."

"No," he agreed, pulling the neck of his tunic aside. "But I think I know what a mole looks like," he continued, revealing three small bumps all looking the same as Anakin's own making the boy blush a deep scarlet and another wave of laughter to bubble up in Obi-Wan's chest. The mirth in his eyes and curling of his lips more infectious this time and soon Anakin's boyish giggles were intermingled with his own chuckles.

"You're not going to die, Anakin. But we can still go to the healers and have it fully checked out if you're still worried about it. You are right that they can be deceptive, after all." Anakin watched the older man for a few minutes, peering at the moles on his master's neck as he thought it over.

"No, I trust you," he finally answered, smiling brightly at the ginger haired man before he threw his arms around said man's neck.

Obi-Wan let out a muffled 'omph' but had his arms around the boy in the same instant. Rising to his feet again before heading off to make dinner with his padawan.

If Anakin's feet didn't touch the ground for the rest of the night, well, that was their business not the rest of the temples.

* * *

Later, when Anakin is asleep in his arms and Obi-Wan is finishing his mission debrief before he has to leave in the morning, he decides to take another peek at the birthmark that had caused such a fuss earlier. Just in case. It was a bit of a juggle to get close enough to the mark without waking his charge, but he did manage to get close enough to see it clearly, using the Force to enhance his vision.

He froze.

He wasn't able to read the blurred words, but he knew what it was all the same. Bringing the renewed feeling of the burning through the mark on his elbow. Only sheer force of will kept him from rubbing the leather that wrapped his bicep and disturb the sleeping child. He blinked and made himself breath just as steady as he had been a moment before, loath to frighten his padawan.

The words were small and curved in a graceful, arching spiral. He didn't know why it was so tiny, but then, Obi-Wan didn't know why his soulmate was a nine year old either, so he figured he was going to be in the dark about it. Reaching through his bond with his padawan, he examined the itching, almost burn that radiated through the small mark on his chest. It wasn't strong, unlike the one around his elbow, but it had the potential to be excruciating. Making an impulsive decision the redhead decided to pull all the burning the boy was experiencing through their bond, shielding him from it.

Just as Qui-Gon had done for him when his mark first appeared, Obi-Wan would protect his padawan from the Council and the rest of the Order. He would never let them send him away for a soulmark. For a little speck of black that had words he may never be able to read on it. For a band of darkness around his elbow they could never acknowledge.

For being the first and only person (to his knowledge) to have more than one soulmate.

No, Obi-Wan would protect the little boy and keep his promise. He would see Anakin become a Jedi Knight and would see him balance the Force as his destiny as the Chosen One dictated.

He would keep his little brother (maybe his son) safe from the machinations of those who just didn't understand. Who could never understand and would seek to hurt and destroy him for it. Them both. He would keep the burning secret and hidden.

His own body and mind be damned.

* * *

"I don't have a soulmark, Ani," She sighed. Her eyes downcast as she watched the sun reflect over the lake of her childhood home. Her fingers playing with the stone barrier she leaned against and swallowed convulsively. Trying not to feel jealous. Trying not to feel that horrible ache she felt whenever she remembered she was one of the few unmarked in the Galaxy. One of the Unloved.

"What?" Anakin reeled. He had to grip the wall to keep himself steady and force his jaw back to a close. His eyes were wide and beseeching as he tried to search her body for the mark she was surely hiding from him. The black band that had burned ever since he met her. Or was it after? He's still fuzzy about that, but if what she is saying is true, then the truth he has been trying to ignore is a bitter pill he's being forced to swallow.

"But-" he tried, reaching a shaking hand out to her. She turned away from him violently, shoulders shaking with repressed sorrow. Bitter pain and thinly veiled betrayal. And he knows it's true. It's true. He's been lying to himself all these years and now he's hurt Padmé in his stupid, selfish blunder.

"I'm sorry, Padmé," he tries, putting his hand back on the wall and swallowing his own disappointment. Breathes hard through his nose and blinks to keep the tears where they belong. He has a soulmate, Padmé doesn't. She deserves to be hurt and to cry, not him.

Except, Anakin has never met his soulmate. And if he has, they haven't made any attempt to explain to him why they have been ignoring him for ten years.

"Mine abandoned me," he confesses, more to himself than to her. Breathes it out and knows it's true. He doesn't even bother trying to stop his tears or hide his shameful pain. "Jedi aren't supposed to have soulmates; that's a commitment to something other than the Order. But I do. And they abandoned me. I though it was you- I hoped it was you, but now I see that I was wrong. And I've hurt you because of it. I'm sorry Padmé, for being such an idiot and a selfish jerk." He looks into her shocked expression from when she turned around to stare at him incredulously. He can't stand the look she gives him, blurred by tears he shouldn't be shedding after what he just did to her, so he looks away. Squints at the lake and wishes he could be anywhere else. If only just to stop hurting her.

"Oh, Ani," she breaths, just as pained and hurt as he feels. Her head rests on his shoulder and stays there. He holds her as they each cry. Over the loss of love and never having it to begin with. Basking in the company of misery. Their tortured souls reaching out to one another and holding on. Pretending that it was something better. Something happier.

* * *

"Lets pretend we are," he said suddenly to the darkness around them. She looked up sharply at him. The firelight casts her lovely face in golden light and angled shadows. Half her face wreathed in light, the other in darkness. She was a perfect balance of light and dark and beauty in that moment and Anakin felt his breath being kicked out of his chest at the sight.

"Pretend we are what?" Her tone is halting and careful. She has pursed her lips to keep herself from agreeing like an idiot.

"That we're each other's soulmates," he elaborated, hope shining in his eyes from where the firelight covered most of his face. Casting only a few angles in darkness. Even still, the starlight from the window illuminated his skin and prevented it from being totally dark. Or maybe that was the light within him that was glowing through his skin.

"We can't."

"Sure we can."

"No. We can't."

"Why not?"

"You have one already!"

"They don't want me! I don't want them. I love you; I have always loved you, Padmé. Don't you see. Destiny may give us soulmates but we can choose who we love. So screw fate! I don't care. We can be together. You are not an Unloved, Padmé. You deserve love and I will give it freely for the rest of my life. If you want it," he declared, jumping from his seat and kneeling before her. He tries to grasp her hands but she pulls them away too fast. Her expression serious. Suspicious.

"You're serious?"

"Of course I am!" he exclaims, hurt but hopeful. He's pleading and she feels so stupid and hopeful too. But she's afraid. What if his soulmate comes back and he leaves her? What if all they are doing is setting themselves up for failure? She doesn't think she can do that to herself.

"I- I'm sorry, Ani. But, I- I just can't," she whispered and left, tears shinning in her eyes. Racing away from him and dashing through the door in her haste to escape him and all his promises. It isn't fair! She wants what he is offering and if he was an unmarked like her, she would have jumped at that chance, him being a Jedi be damned. He's the first and only who had ever offered her that.

But he has a soulmate. And despite the abandonment, she will come back and steal him away from her.

It isn't fair and she cries herself to sleep that night.

Anakin, meanwhile, lets the tears dry on his skin and accepts the burning itch they leave as a reminder he was alive. To pretend that they were his soulmark with Padmé. To overshadow the burning in his arm. The tiny trickle that he would rub and scratch at and cry over only on the darkest of nights when his master was away on a mission and wasn't there to sooth it away. To help him ignore it. To coo assurances that his soulmate loved him and would never stop, no matter where they were.

He'd rather have Padmé.

* * *

"Let's pretend we are," she whispered, fear dancing in her eyes as they were carted out into the arena. "If this is our last day alive, lets pretend that we are. I don't want to die an Unloved-" she didn't finish as Anakin slammed his lips to hers in an awkward parody of romance that left them breathless and giddy.

"Soulmark or not, I love you. I will always love you," he whispered into her lips. Pressing them more softly, devouring her brilliant smile with passion when she kissed back.

"I love you too, Anakin," she breathed into his lips. "Forever."

And there was an itch then, somewhere over his heart that was the same, familiar burn of his arm. Evolving into a fire that warms and soothes more than it harms. A warmth that envelopes them. Blooms and spreads across his chest with certainty. Padmé's eyes burned with the same fire when they parted. To be forgotten in a few moments, but cherished all the same.

* * *

Obi-Wan watched as the lovers were lead out of the darkness and towards him. They are practically glued to one another's mouths, but he recognizes the blond mess of hair of his padawan and the brown bun of the senator's. Feels the spark of the Force between them and cringes as the burning threatens to consume him. Feels the harsh and familiar ache over his chest that rips tears and bile through his careful shields.

He shudders and lets go of the blooming heat in his heart that doesn't belong to him. Feels his grasp on the burning that he had been carefully shielding from his padawan all theses years slip and fade as it turned to the warmth of a fulfilled soulmark. Breathes deeply through his nose and releases it out his mouth to hide the flaring nostrils and the reddening of his lips and eyes. To make the burn of tears edge away. Tries to release it to the Force and go back to his quiet acceptance of death that he had just a few seconds ago.

Anakin had found his other soulmate. He found his other half. The half that Obi-Wan couldn't fill.

He mourns for them and the lives they are about to lead and destroy.

* * *

"I wonder why we never noticed it before," Anakin asked, tracing the blossom of words and black that had budded from the tiny little mole on his wife's breast. She hummed and rested a hand on his to stop the tickling feeling he invoked there. Her brown eyes glittering in the starlight and her warm skin shining like a beacon. He wanted to taste her flesh again and love her body until the day the stars exploded and the galaxy burst into color and flames and eternity.

But the warmth of their soulmark above her beating heart is too much to let go of in that moment. He stops tracing the lines that read of their love, but lets his hand rest over the whole of it. Like a promise and a shield.

"I don't know, Ani," she murmurs into the night, their breath still mingled as he drew his lips closer to hers.

"Maybe we just needed to find love on our own. Without a guide," he mused, biting into her neck a little and pressing feather light kisses across her shoulder. She sighed into his loving caress and nodded her own acceptance to this. Whatever the fates may have decided for them, she is just happy to know that she has found someone to love her. To always be hers. So what if he has a second soulmate? So what if they abandoned him? He had her and she would do her best to be enough for him. She would make sure that they could live happily despite it all.

Besides, maybe his other soulmate has a place in her life as well as his.

* * *

Ahsoka Tano had never seen a soulmark before. She knows what they are and she knows exactly what they mean, especially amongst the Jedi. But she'd never seen one. Never even wished for one, despite what she's heard about them. She is training to be a Jedi and she cannot have that sort of commitment to anything that will jeopardize that. She is happy not having one.

So she thinks.

It's weird to see soulmarks on clones, though. It's proof enough that they are not just copies of Jango Fett and that they are living beings with unique personalities, regardless of their training. It also means that when the war is over (if the war ever ends) they will have an easier time of fighting for their own rights and their own lives. Because any sentient being with a soulmark is automatically granted that sort of acknowledgement.

And they look weird. Even the ones that haven't been fulfilled yet. The ones where they are different colors and the ones where they all spell out pretty words no one can read. She likes looking at the ones that have complex designs, like the green one on Cody's neck, but the simple ones capture her attention just the same. They all tell a story that hasn't come to pass yet and they sing within the Force like they are meant to be there. And it's not just the ones on the clones either. But on any race. Any being who can fall in love and express themselves (however badly they are at it) to another person. She likes to imagine the scenarios that will pass and the marks will burn until they are consummated or fulfilled. How they will make the burning go away and live the rest of their lives in happiness.

Of course, she's fourteen, not stupid. She knows that happily ever after isn't real and that relationships are a lot of hard work- that's what makes them worth it. She also knows that most of the stories she hears about the burning is a load of bantha fodder and most only feel the desire to kiss to fulfill the mark. That the burning is just an itch or an impromptu action that results in finding their soulmate. All those stories about agony and burning lust are just romance novel junk that she will _not_ admit to having ever read.

She also isn't stupid enough to let herself want a mark.

Even if she does.

* * *

When it appeared, Ahsoka was terrified.

She had been meditating with her master when a searing ache ripped through her chest. Like when a blaster had torn a chunk out of her shoulder only this was worse. It was everywhere but only in one spot while the bite was more of a slow, persistent burn. She shuddered and cringed and felt a spike of panic and fear echo across the bond she shared with Master Obi-Wan.

It seemed to last forever, going on and on and she was half convinced she would be like this for the rest of her life when, suddenly, it was gone.

She's laying on the ground when her vision clears of grey and she can't feel anymore pounding through her montrals. Her master's warm face is white with worry and with a strange sort of knowing that has her on edge in an instant. She's grabbing her chest the second she can muster up the energy to move. A frenetic surge of emotion that is unbefitting of a Jedi, but she could really care less about that at the moment because Master Obi-Wan looks like he's about to throw up or tell her that her puppy just died.

He does neither and only helps her to sit up again. She swallows but won't let him break eye contact. She's too scared to let go of that comfort. She's certain that if she does loose it, all that is going on is going to explode and the world as she knows it is going to be nothing but ashes at her feet

She gulps in deep breaths and hopes that she isn't shivering too badly. The tension in her shoulders feels like it's going to tear her in two and that there will be no help from Obi-Wan to put her back together again.

"What-?" she tries, not sure how to continue and unable to get anything else past her closed off throat.

He just shakes his head, hand coming up to the skin over her breast, right where the aching pain had been, before leaving. The trailing ghosts of his fingertips leaving a cool shiver where the burning had once been. Better and so much worse than the scorching heat that had nearly engulfed her because there is a kind of knowledge and sadness in that touch that feels like her world is on it's last legs.

"Master?" she whimpers. She doesn't want him to let her go. She wants him to hold her close and tell her that it was all a nightmare, a vision from the force of her death is better than what she fears it to be.

His hands don't come back; his eyes flicker down to the sleeve of his left arm. A thick swallow that looks painful makes the knot in his throat bob up and down. Fingers shaking as he reaches up and pulls his sleeve nearly to his shoulder.

Ahsoka had never wondered about her master's tendency to wear the long, fingerless gloves that reached past his elbows and covered most of his biceps. She'd always just accepted that it was a part of him that she shouldn't question. Like his beard or the color of his hair. It just wasn't important to her.

Well, until now.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the laces along the center of underarm came undone and allowed the brown leather to slide down and off his arm. Revealing pale flesh that had likely never seen the light for more than a few hours at a time. At first, she thought that was all that would be there.

It wasn't.

The black band that covered his arm was no thicker than his finger, the blurred words creating motes of mystery she didn't even want to think about. Seeing soulmarks on clones or other people in the galaxy was one thing. Seeing them on normal people was ok; wondering about the stories that would take place for these marks to turn black and words clear was a fantasy that was ok to think about.

Seeing a half fulfilled mark upon her master's arm was not something she wanted to see.

Like all the foundations to her life had been ripped out from beneath her feet, Ahsoka broke. Tumbled down and cried, knowing that he was showing her only because she had one herself. There was no lying anymore. She had a soulmark and she was never going to be rid of it. She was fifteen and her soulmate had just been born. What was she to do? Would she even become a Jedi now?

"I was sixteen," Obi-Wan murmured into the soft skin of her montrals. His beard hairs a soft scratch that was welcome from all the times that he held her after rough battles and cared for her when she was hurt.

"Does Anakin know?" she whispered because that seems like the most logical question. The two are nearly inseparable and they clearly love one another. Perhaps not in that way (though really, she doesn't have the first clue about romance, so what would she know?) but they were family. Obi-Wan admitted once while the knight had been unconscious that he saw the younger Jedi as a brother or a son. Surely he had to know, right?

"Anakin has two of his own soulmarks," Master Obi-Wan explained carefully, pulling her quaking form into his lap and holding her closer. Closer and closer and still too far away. Not far enough away from what was going on that she could ignore the itching, burning in her chest.

"Two?" she gasped, but Kenobi ignored her.

"But he does not know that I have one of my own. Until now, only my own master ever knew of my mark," he rushed out, like he had been waiting to tell someone his whole life. And maybe he had.

"Why not?" Why share with her but not his own self proclaimed son? Why only tell the second padawan and not the first? She's confused and all the more terrified of what he will say.

"Because I vowed never to tell Anakin I was his soulmate."

Slience. Harsh, cold silence suffused with hot shame and burning incredulity filled the space between them. Ahsoka felt like a weight had been attached to her heart and sent plummeting out through her toes. Like her internal clock had stuttered and wasn't moving anymore. There were no seconds that were passing by as she sat there and processed what had happened to her wonderful, poor master.

Being fifteen and having a soulmark appear was bad enough, but being sixteen and your too young for you soulmate become your padawan? Tears welled up in her eyes and she felt like she was going to throw up.

"None of this is your fault, my dear. You will not be expelled. I will tell no one," was his whispered reproach. She just sniffed; she didn't care that she was a Jedi-in-Training and was supposed to release her emotions into the Force. Her master had lied all his life to his soulmate and now was going to lie for her so she wouldn't be expelled form the order. Just like he had for Anakin.

Life was so unfair.

"You'll get through this, my dear padawan. My wonderful Ahsoka," he murmured, rocking her slowly and securely as she poured her heartbreak and her indignation for all that she had been told and had learned. As white hot tears scalded her cheeks and she wished, in vain, that she could make it all go away. That she could go to sleep and wake up to relive this day again- better and without ever learning of the horrible truth. Never to feel her mark burn into her.

Later, she will look in the mirror and see a blue and brown swirl of lines that look very much like a heart and spell words she can't read. Obi-Wan will tell her that her soulmate will be a poet someday and almost chuckles at her blush.

She won't ask what his said because she thinks he is allowed some secrets to himself. She doesn't want to wait for Skywalker to say the words every time he opens his mouth. Or kill him when he never says it.

So, when it appeared, Ahsoka was terrified. But she wasn't alone.

* * *

The world fell from beneath him. The hole in his chest that had existed since his master's death consumed him. Swallowed him whole and left him in darkness and in despair.

But he didn't feel numb. Oh no, that would have been a blessing.

What he felt, instead, was pain. Pure, raw agony of his heart being ripped from his chest and left to beat on regardless. A cruel ache in the pit of his stomach and the swell of his throat. Tears prickling harshly as they blurred his eyes. The dead weight of his beautiful apprentice in his arms a lump of lead in his chest.

Ahsoka's blue eyes stared lifelessly up at him and her lightsabers plopped to the ground with dull thuds as he lifted her prone form further into his arms. Burying his face into the spot on her chest where a blaster bolt pierced her heart. Cleaved her beautiful breast in two and shredded her blue and brown soulmark. He mourned for her soulmate, who would feel her loss and feel her death and never know who she was as his mark burned itself out of existence. He had heard it was excruciatingly painful, but he would never know. He thinks that if Anakin were to have died, he would have died along with him. Even from the other side of the galaxy.

But then, Anakin was the one who did this. It was _Anakin_ who killed her, who killed his dear Ahsoka. He knew the boy had been jealous when he first received his new padawan, but they had grown so close that sometimes it felt she had two masters, not just him. The man he had raised since childhood could be possessive and mercurial but he would never have done this.

Or, so Obi-Wan had thought.

But he had thought a lot of things in his lifetime and many of them had been disproved with this terrible war. No other lesson had been this painful, this heartbreaking, though.

He sobbed into the ruined fabric of his padawan's tunic and stroked her montrals even though she could not feel his reassuring touch. He breathed deeply and tried not to choke on his own tongue. Pushed the bile and the curses and the hatred down into his stomach and forced it all out of his body. Out of his mind and deep into his soul. He could not feel the Force, he refused, it was too broken and sad. There were too many deaths ringing out around him. Too many people he knew shouting out their final exclamations of pain and terror within their own beloved halls. He couldn't stand to feel them all at once, he only wanted to feel hers.

So he cried and wailed and bit his lip and tried to beg for her to come back and to be ok. She still had to find her soulmate and live a full and wonderful life. She still had so much to live for. His beautiful padawan.

Master Yoda said nothing as he watched the last of his lineage shudder and break before him, feeling all the more old and useless for it.

* * *

"You did this! You brought her here to kill me! My own Soulmate!" The voice of his apprentice snarls at him. It's corrosive and cutting and Obi-Wan just wants to forget that he ever heard it. He just wants to pretend that this is all another nightmare and that he will wake up and Anakin will be nine years old again, launching onto his bed and jumping up and down like a lunatic because he gets to learn to use a lightsaber in class today.

"She had no idea I was here, Anakin. I used her to get to you," he says instead. He knows that it will be a mistake to admit it.

Sure enough the rage and hatred that had been clawing at the edges of Anakin's handsome face distort and mar the angled features and the already sweat soaked skin. The eyes, the sickly yellow of pure hate and rage and madness, shimmer out with the ugly power that threatens to consume him. Consume them both.

"Is there no end to you're jealousy? How could you use my Soulmate against me?" Anakin spits out, slashing the air between them all with his mechanical hand and pointing the appendage with an accusing finger towards the Jedi. The burning is back and more fierce than ever but he tries to ignore it, he tries to funnel it into the force like he's done for all these years and attempts to put the cracking pieces of his heart back where they belong so that the younger man cannot rip into it any more.

"It was never just her, Anakin. Padmė wasn't the soulmate you thought abandoned you. She's only one of them," Obi-Wan sighed, wishing that a hole would just swallow him up and end all his suffering already.

"What?" The voice of his former padawan snarled at him. Viscous and accusing. He hated it. He couldn't look at him, those yellow eyes.

"It was me, Ani. It's always been me," he said as the tears began streaming down his cheeks. He ignited his lightsaber and ripped a hole through the sleeve of his tunic, heedless of the plasma burn he gave himself in order to rip the sleeve fully off of his arm. It was nothing compared to what burned in his chest- what had burned his arm all these long years.

There, around the man's elbow, stood a vivid black band. No bigger than a finger's width and with patterns of words they could never read flowing through the endless depth. The exact same as his. Padmė gasped, but said and did nothing more than back just a small ways away. Tears leaking down her cheeks as she started to figure it all out.

"What? How could-? How long have you known?" The Sith shouted, eyes flickering between the rage of all the long years of not understanding his master's reticence and hope that everything would be better now. Yellow interspersed with the blue that Obi-Wan had known so well throughout his life.

"The whole time, Anakin," the Jedi sighed, barely audible over the roar of the inferno they occupied. The trails of his agony shining brightly against the lava stained earth. Stood out from his sweat soaked and ash covered cheeks.

"How could you keep it from me?!" Anakin roared, desperate and angry. Betrayed.

"You were _nine_!" Obi-wan snarled, roared, slashing the air between them with his lightsaber. "You were nine force forsaken years old and the only way to make the burning stop and for it to be real is-" He stopped- shuddered whole bodily- and choked on his words. He clenched his eyes shut and willed for the tears to just stop.

They ignored him.

"I was going to tell you when you were eighteen, Anakin. I was going to tell you and let you decide what to do when you were old enough to make your own decisions, but after what happened when you were eleven-" he shudders again. "I was the only person you trusted after that, Anakin! I was the only person you didn't flinch away from and the _only_ one you would talk to after that. I _never_ wanted you to feel like that around me- I never wanted you to look at me like _that_ , like what those _monsters_ -!" He choked again and grunted with the effort of staying up right. Of trying to breath through his pain and his fear. It had taken him years to get through this and he remembers every night waking to the burning and the agony and wishing, just _pleading_ for it to go away and for his soulmate to be someone- _anyone_ \- else. Especially after Anakin had been kidnapped and raped by those bastards. After Obi-Wan had failed to find him in time to save him from that. After all the years of watching him grow older and farther and farther away from him. He sagged into himself anyway and only managed to stay up on his feet because he willed the force to keep him there. The tears didn't stop; his breathing remained ragged and pained. His voice became hoarse as he tried to continue- to explain it all.

"I swore I would endure the agony all on my own. I took yours and kept it in my mind because I could never stand to hurt you. It would _shatter_ me, Anakin, for you to look at me like that. More than loosing you to another ever could."

He was sobbing now and he let the force release him to his knees. It was useless to try and avoid how much agony he was in. He had lost so much, so many, and now he was loosing Anakin. Again. He wondered, distantly, if there was anything else that the universe would try and take from him.

He almost kicked himself for offering the challenge.

Anakin watched the proud figure of his mentor, his Master, slump in on himself and cry out tears of bitterness and agony. Something he never would have thought possible. Seeing his perfect Jedi mask disappear like it had never existed hadn't been something he ever considered being possible. It hadn't been anything he had ever even _thought_ of. Never. Not even the thought of having this man as his other soulmate could take away from what he was seeing- the fractured, tortured soul that his master- his _father_ \- had become. What _he_ had made him.

He feels sick with himself.

"Why didn't you tell the council? Why not ask for help?" He asks, taking a few wobbling steps towards the Jedi. Padmé followed slowly, but didn't interject as she watched her good friend break into pieces.

Obi-Wan's head snapped up and a bitter sneer curled at the edges of his lips. Twisted his handsome face into a sick parody of the man who had raised him. Anakin flinched. He crashed to his knees before him.

"Do you take me for a fool, Anakin? They would have taken you away from me. They would have said my judgment was impaired and I could only taint and hurt you. They would have cast you out or given you to a master that would try to ruin all the good things that make you who you are. They would have willfully destroyed you just to keep me from you. No, Anakin. I swore I would not love you just because destiny told me too, but that I would find a reason to do so because I wanted to. And they would never have given me that chance. They could never have understood. Anakin, my _son_ , they would have taken you away just to hurt you; to hurt me," Obi-Wan sighed running his thumbs over the strong cheekbones and wiping the errant tears from the boy's face. _His_ boy's face.

"I would die before I told them that. Over my dead body would they have ever taken you away from me," he breathed and pressed his lips to the scarred forehead in his grasp. "I love you, Anakin. I have loved you since I met you, though it didn't always seem like it, and for that I am so, _so very sorry_."

Anakin crumpled into him, sobbing at the shocking, wonderful words that were spilling from the Jedi's mouth. Feeling Obi-Wan wrap him up in his arms and pulling his quaking frame further into his embrace and onto his lap like when Anakin was just a little kid. Sitting back and wrapping his legs around the larger man's frame like it was nothing. Like the past ten years hadn't happened and Obi-Wan was going to lift him up and wrap them both up in his blankets and they would fall asleep in his bed to soothe each other's nightmares. Like the master was going to shove the Knight into a med cot on the _Resolute_ or the _Negotiator_ and hold his hand until the med droids had finished with him and he was drifting off. Like they were back at the temple, before the war, and they were sitting in their common room. Curled up on the couch and watching Holovids and eating junk food until they were sick and squinting and laughing.

"I'm sorry," he gasped. He kept his face pressed into the man's shoulder and hands tangled tightly into the ash dusted tunics. "I'm an idiot! I ruined everything- I'm sorry!"

"Oh, Anakin," the soft voice of his master, his father, sighed into his ears and ruffled his messy hair.

"You were always there! You were always there for me and you never once hurt me. I could never ask for a greater master- a better father," he whispered into the strong shoulder that held him.

"Nor I a better son," came Obi-Wan's reply.

And then it happened. The burning and the aching pain that the Jedi could not keep contained anymore and it ripped through them. A zipping, agonizing- _warm, loving, safe_ \- feeling raced through them. It was splitting atoms and it was charred bones. It screamed and sang and _burned_. It burned and it burned as it warmed them through like the suns on Tatooine. It was a supernova that burst into colors behind their eyes and filled their lungs with hot, white love. Pure energy singing through every cell.

It lasted an hour, a moment- an eternity.

It was over before they could take another breath.

When the black finally faded from their vision and they could see and feel the world around them again, there was just warmth and love surrounding them. The fires of Mustafar were forgotten as they held onto each other, pressed their foreheads together and cried at the simple joy. At the feeling of warmth running through their veins and healing the years worth of agony from their marks. Removing the scars they had inflicted upon them by scratching and clawing and bleeding for the mark to stop burning. For their soulmate to just say something. For the mark to never have existed in the first place.

Obi-Wan smiled widely, running his thumbs across the angular, golden skin of his son's cheeks and wiping the tears away. In this moment he could forget everything the young man had done and forget about all the heart ache and suffering they were about to know and had all ready gone through. In this one, brief moment, Obi-Wan was truly happy as he held his son in his arms and loved him with all his heart. Without hiding or being ashamed of what or who he was.

In that moment, Obi-Wan had his Anakin back. And Anakin had the father he always wanted and would never let go of. Never allow to disappear behind the Jedi mask and code and would never allow another person to hurt him again. Never let anybody talk down to his master and never let anyone chastise the poor man for feeling anything at all. Would never allow himself to hurt this man who loved and protected him his whole life.

"Lets get the hell out of here," Anakin breathed, grabbing tightly to the shoulder in front of him. Hauling his master up by the shoulders and grasping his wife's frail hand in his own before leading them both up the ramp of the star yacht.

* * *

"Please give me your lightsaber, Anakin," Obi-Wan asked, holding out his hand to the young man though he could not reach his eyes.

"Why would I do that?" he demanded, removing his weapon from his belt and holding it tightly in his fist. The robotic one, the one that would never loose it's grip.

"So you can hurt no others."

"What?" he gasped, shock and betrayal ringing out in the Force. "But, Obi-Wan-! They were Separatists! I was trying to end the war. I know I shouldn't have done it, it's not the Jedi way, but you can't be serious!"

"And the Temple, Anakin?" the older man snapped, eyes flashing up to met the soft blue ones of his friend's. "What of them? How did their deaths end the war? How can you tell me not to ask for it when they were defenseless against you? Tell me, Anakin, why did you do it?" he demanded, only distantly aware that his voice had risen and he was shouting at the younger man. His hand reaching out to take the lightsaber from the younger man but wasn't fast enough. The blond grabbed it with his other hand as well and took a step back, recoiling from the venom in his master's tone.

"What are you talking about, Obi-Wan? I've been on Mustafar all day! I haven't been to the Temple since Windu and the others left to take down Palpatine," Anakin cried, almost squeaking with panic. Eyes wide and hand shaking as he held his lightsaber between them both and clutched it to his chest. Like a shield against what the older man was telling them.

"I saw the video feed, Anakin. The security holos showed you ki-" Obi-Wan paused to breath through his nose and pinch the skin between his eyes. He didn't care if he left a bruise, he just needed the anchor against the waves of emotion.

"I've been here! I never went back to the Temple!" Anakin screamed. He squeaked with his terror and his betrayal this time. His eyes so wide and full of tears that the older man felt them constrict his chest painfully.

"Ani," Padmé breathed, trying to place her hand on his chest so she could sooth him, but he tore himself from her reach violently. Almost snarling in his fear and his hurt. His limbs shaking with the effort needed to keep from striking out at any of them. Breathing ragged while searching for their understanding; pleading for them to believe him.

"I swear!" he shouted, pressing his back against the ship's wall. Lightsaber still clutched tightly to his chest. "Please, you have to believe me. He told me to come here and kill the Separatists- I never went back to the Temple!"

Obi-Wan watched as the panic and the hurt spread over every single angle of his friend's- _son's_ \- face. Felt his heart clench painfully in his chest and wanted to, _so badly_ he wanted to believe what the young man was saying. But he had seen the holovids. He remembers the looks on their friend's faces when Anakin's lightsaber feel against them and took their lives. Ripping their breath from their bodies and rending their souls from their hearts. He saw the young man kneel before the Sith over his comrade's corpses and pledge allegiance to the new Emperor. The images had burned into his cornea and left holes in his heart. That shattered and frail thing that barely beat in his chest for all the hours it took to find his wayward, former apprentice.

"You killed Ahsoka," he finally breathed, looking away from the young face and to the floor. Feeling his heart breaking and knees giving way once more. He managed to fall into a seat this time, but it could have been made of stone for all he noticed.

Above him, Anakin gasped and shuddered. He sank to the floor, head shaking from side to side and tears leaking through his tightly shut lids. Sobs escaping almost as ragged and harsh as the mantra of "no no no no," passed through bitten and red lips. Burying his head into his knees and keeping his hands tightly wound over his weapon. Obi-Wan wondered how he could stand to look at the thing, stand to hold the weapon that had killed so many of his friends and family- slaughtered children; murdered the young teenager who could have been his sister.

"I didn't," he said again, muffled by the fabric of his pants. Padmé sat in a chair between them, hands clutching the fabric of her tunic over her swollen belly. Her children. Anakin's children.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan tried again, just wanting for it all to be over with. He could forgive his friend- he could- but he could not allow the boy to remain armed around his very pregnant wife. He had to get him contained and keep him from hurting anyone else. He just had to.

"No!" came the harsh and hoarse whisper, red rimmed eyes shimmering a blue sea at him. An ocean of betrayal and certainty. "I didn't kill her, Obi-Wan. I could never kill her, any of them. Please, let me prove it."

The older Jedi tried to retract his hands from the younger when he crawled across the ship to kneel before him, lightsaber forgotten and eyes and face so open and full of hope and askance and just _pleading_ with him, but the younger man had a tight grip and Obi-Wan was trapped. A cautious and tender brush came across their old bond then, searching and full of hope.

 _Please,_ it whispered. _Please, let me show you_. So he let it. Allowed the presence to slide past his shields and open a display of memories so clear and sharp they could be nothing but true. No falsities or inaccuracies were there, hidden from view. Nothing to disprove what the boy was telling him. There was no lie when Anakin said he had not returned to the Temple.

Someone else had been there. Someone else had been the one to kill every person that they loved and trusted. Someone else had lied and planted false evidence to trick anyone who remained.

Someone had framed Anakin and Obi-Wan was going to kill them.

"I believe you," Obi-Wan finally whispered, brushing tear tracks and their travelers from his boy's cheeks. "I am so sorry, my boy," he murmured as he gripped the younger man's shoulders to his own in a strong and desperate embrace.

"I'm sorry, Master," Anakin said, instead of thanking him for believing him. "I should have been there to protect them. I'm sorry."

"As am I, Young One."

They remained like that, just holding onto one another and relishing the soft warmth of their embrace and the comfort of family that they had found. Not really thinking of anything as they just stayed close. Kept a steady grip on tunics and ran fingers through hair or brushed lips against skin. Eventually allowing their companion to lead them to a bed and settle the three of them down for sleep. They would be safe enough in hyperspace for a while and they could afford to rest after their ordeal.

It was all they could do. They didn't know if anything would be alright, but at least they could just be there for one another.

* * *

"So what do we do now?"

It was asked with a soft voice and gentle murmur of lips, but it was loud in the dull hum of the ship as it sailed through hyperspace. Artoo and Threepio had been shut off and put to sleep in order to avoid any conflict at the time so it was just the three of them. It wasn't lonely per say, but there was a pervading sense of awkwardness and tension that ran through the atmosphere. One filled with worry for the future and the galaxy while wondering what, exactly, had changed between the three of them.

"I don't know," Obi-Wan replied to the senator's question. He was calm now and had slipped on his mask of serenity if only to keep from going insane. But the other two knew just how much of a mask it really was. A lie and a shield.

"I suppose we will have to find Yoda and anyone else who managed to survive," Anakin murmured, keeping his chin buried in the crook of his elbow where he rested his arms on the table. Slouched over and staring blankly at the wall.

"And find anyone else who opposes this new empire. Not now, but perhaps someday soon, we can find a way to end it and the Sith."

"A rebellion is the only way. It will take a lot to get it started and it's bound to be unsafe."

"I doubt it will be safe for any of us for a very long time."

"Maybe we should try and contact some of the senators from the Delegation of 2000?"

"Yes that would be good, but we will have to be careful."

"We also have to figure out who it was that helped Sidious frame me-"

"I meant about us," Padmé suddenly cut in. Voice soft and watery as she watched her hands rub her stomach. Her shoulders were bent forward and her hair gleamed dully in the artificial light. A fine tremor running through her fingers as she sniffed and tried not to catch either of their gazes.

"What do you mean?" Anakin asked cautiously. Eyes now locked solidly on her as he tried to puzzle out her hidden meaning. Obi-Wan wasn't nearly as clueless.

"I assure you, Padmé," he began, reaching out to snatch one of her hands. The brown eyes that met his were wet with unshed tears and he knew not much would be needed to send them tumbling down her ivory cheeks. "I have no intention of taking him away from you. As you saw, Anakin is my soulmate, but only as far as a platonic relationship. He loves you with all his heart and I know you feel the same. After everything I went through to keep him safe from the Council, I will never do anything to hurt him."

"After everything you did," she sneered almost bitterly back. "That's just it. After everything you did to keep him, what would you do to keep him away from me?"

"Padmé!" Anakin cried, disbelieving.

"You are as much his soulmate as I am. It hurts to know you would ever think me capable of trying to take him away from you. I only want his happiness," Obi-Wan said sharply, pulling his hand back from her biting words. Her tears fell then, and a choked sob escaped her. Anakin's large frame rushing around the table to embrace her, hold her close and whisper encouraging promises into her hair. Brushing his soft lips against her forehead and nuzzling her cheek with his nose.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as she held onto his shoulders tightly. "I know you would never do anything to hurt anyone. I'm just so scared and I don't know what to do about anything anymore."

"There is no need to apologize, my dear," Obi-Wan murmured, lifting himself from his own chair to wrap them both in his arms. He was only ten years older than her but he felt more like a parent to her than he ever felt like a friend. He was her husband's father after all, why not love her the same way?

"We are all scared," Anakin broke in. His intense eyes boring into them each as he pulled away. Padmé hiccuped but said nothing as she waited for him to finish.

"We are all scared," he said again, staring into Obi-Wan's eyes this time. "But we have each other. And even if the two of you aren't soulmates, that doesn't mean you can't love each other and care about one another regardless. We are a family now; we are all we have left. With each other, and a good dose of love to back it all up, we can get through whatever the Force or the gods or anything else decides to throw at us," he finished with a firm nod before kissing his wife soundly on the lips and then his master's temple. For a moment all was silent.

"When did you get so wise, my dear padawan?" Obi-Wan finally asked, a teasing lilt to his smile as he circled his arms tighter around the couple. Padmé's choked giggle echoing his own chuckle when the blond flashed a bright smile at them both.

"When I found my two most wonderful soulmates," was his sappy reply as he grinned even more broadly at them. Padmé burst out laughing at that, resting her head against the older man's shoulder and watching her husband begin bickering with their friend. Biting her lips to keep from sobbing all the more with how happy she suddenly was.

She was still terrified, still worried about what their future would look like and for the safety of her child, but Anakin was right. They would all have each other and they would do their damned best to keep it that way. The Fates had given her a soulmark and hid it as a freckle while giving a good man a child for a soulmate, but it all worked out in the end and they were happy despite everything.

And, suddenly, the future didn't seem so scary. The cloud of darkness wasn't as heavy as it had been and there was hope burning brightly all around her. Within her. Which made everything worth all the pain and fear they had gone through. Made this family of theirs all the more special.

And the harsh burning within their hearts melted away to the gentle warmth of love. Of a soulmark fulfilled.

Padmé smiled and buried her head in her best friend's chest and let her husband kiss her cheek.

* * *

A/N: Finally! I have been trying for six months to get Fanfiction to upload this story so I can post it. I only just managed to get it up here. Sigh. Well, here you go. I hope you all enjoy this fic- I'm a little bit in love with it- and please don't murder me for killing Ahsoka. I love her to death, but killing her was just the way the story wanted to be written. Just as it wanted her to be Obi's second padawan (which, let's be honest, kinda makes more sense.)


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